Vehicle Air Guide Assembly With Sliding Tab Aperture
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Underside air guides on vehicles face challenges in maintaining clearance to avoid obstacles while providing optimal aerodynamics, as existing designs can disengage when subjected to external forces, compromising their structural integrity and aerodynamic profile.
Innovation Solution
An air guide assembly featuring an air guide with extensions that include a tab system allowing sliding movement and interlocking mechanisms to prevent disengagement, utilizing a tab feature that facilitates sliding relative to an aperture, ensuring the air guide extensions remain connected while allowing for flexibility and movement.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the air guide clearance is increased to clear obstacles, then the vehicle can avoid obstacles disposed on the ground, but the aerodynamic profile deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The air guide is designed with dynamic movement capability, allowing it to pivot between a first position (lower clearance for aerodynamics) and a second position (higher clearance for obstacle avoidance). This dynamic adjustment resolves the contradiction by enabling the system to adapt to different operational conditions rather than being fixed in one clearance position.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the clearance parameter dynamically based on operational needs. By pivoting the air guide between two positions, the clearance distance between the air guide and ground is adjusted, allowing optimization between aerodynamic performance and obstacle clearance capability depending on the driving conditions.
2Strength
If the air guide is made rigid to maintain structural integrity, then the structural strength is improved, but the ability to withstand external forces without disengagement deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The connection between the air guide and support bracket is made dynamic through a pivot joint with a retaining feature. This allows the air guide to pivot when external forces are applied, preventing rigid failure and disengagement, while the retaining feature ensures it returns to its operational position, resolving the contradiction between rigidity and flexibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The system incorporates flexible movement capability through the pivot joint, allowing the air guide to flex and pivot when subjected to external forces such as impacts from obstacles. This flexibility prevents structural failure and disengagement while maintaining overall structural integrity through the retaining feature.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If the air guide is positioned low for aerodynamics, then the aerodynamic profile is improved, but the clearance to clear obstacles deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The air guide is designed with dynamic movement capability, allowing it to pivot between a first position (lower clearance for aerodynamics) and a second position (higher clearance for obstacle avoidance). This dynamic adjustment resolves the contradiction by enabling the system to adapt to different operational conditions rather than being fixed in one clearance position.
Data Source
AI summary
An air guide assembly for a vehicle includes an air guide depending from an underside of the vehicle and an air guide extension contiguously disposed at one lateral end of the air guide. The air guide extension includes a tab received through a tab aperture defined in the air guide. The tab includes a tab feature facilitating sliding movement of the tab relative to the tab aperture due to an external force being applied to one of the air guide and the air guide extension.